Hardware startup Misfit Wearables nabbed USD15.2 million in new funding led by Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures in a growth investment round. Due to the significant investment, Misfit had added Horizon director Jason Wong into its board. Aside from Horizon, all of Misfit's existing investors including O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Paypal co-founder Max Levchin, incTANK, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in the said round, Misfit said.
Co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley and with Sonny Vu and Sridhar Iyengar, Misfit was meant to replicate the success of the medical devices company who had produced an Apple-backed glucose meter add-on for the iPhone called Agamatrix.
Misfit's primary product, The Shine, had captured curious pundits in the tech industry. Made of either aircraft-grade aluminum or Japanese metal, the item is not much larger than a US quarter. The gadget had been fitted with LED lights just beneath the surface and glows from the holes of the item, explained TechCrunch based on a product video. The gadget allows a user to track progress in tasks, which is fitting for high-level physical activity enthusiasts, said the tech news site in a previous article.
The company, said TechCrunch, had not divulged any figures or statistics like unit sales, but said it had shipped units in hundreds of thousands to over 20 countries in the past few months. Moreover, Misfit said it had entered into distribution deals with popular retailers like Target, Best Buy and Apple.
Misfit chief executive officer Sonny Vu hinted plans for releasing new products that has yet to be released, fueling possibilities that the recent funding could fund the development and marketing of such products that will be launched next year. Vu also added that Shine was an initial product of Misfit and that other concepts in wearable technology are in the pipeline.
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